Vince Foster

Vince Foster (died 20 July 1993) was a childhood friend and classmate of Bill Clinton[1] who served as White House Counsel for the first five months of the Clinton presidency. Contrary to popular myths Washington Post writer David Maraniss and others propounded, Bill Clinton was not "First in his class," Vince Foster was.[2] Foster was under investigation for espionage at the time of his death.[3][4]

Contents

Some facts

Foster is said to have committed suicide one day after President Bill Clinton took the unprecedented step of firing the head of the FBI. Under the law, the FBI would normally be the agency charged with the investigation of the death of a high ranking Executive Branch official.

Some FBI field agents have been accused of suspicious activities in the conduct of three investigations.

Various theories surround the odd circumstances in Foster's death. Here is a sampling of some theories most frequently discussed:

Foster committed suicide in his office in the White House, and his body was moved by unknown persons to Fort Marcy Park.[7]

Foster committed suicide in his car in the White House parking lot, and his body was transported to Fort Marcy Park by unknown persons.[8]

Foster drove under his own volition to Fort Marcy Park and shot himself.

Foster was the victim of a homicide either in the White House, the White House parking lot, another location, or at Fort Marcy Park.

The statements of EMTs and those first on the scene about the number and nature of bullet wounds in the body conflict with the final reports of the US Park Service and two Independent Counsels, as do statements about the weapon that was found, among other particulars.

it was homicide...

Here are a few of the base arguments which imply Foster's death was a premeditated homicide :

FBI Director William Sessions was summarily fired by President Bill Clinton one day before Foster's death. The FBI, which would have been the lead agency to investigate the death of the highest ranking Executive Branch official since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, was in a state of flux and confusion.[9]

Webster Hubbell is quoted at the time as saying "Don't believe a word you hear. It's not suicide. It couldn't have been."[10]

One such theory is that Foster was lured to a secret apartment referenced severally by a female White House intern with brownish-blonde hair for sex.[12] And that either at that location or elsewhere he was executed, with a smokeless ball powder low velocity bullet below the jaw line on his right side, leaving the bullet within the cranium.[13] Another bullet was fired into his mouth, to make it appear as suicide, and his body transported to Fort Marcy Park where the federal Park Service would have jurisdiction, not the local DC police homicide unit.

it was suicide...

These are some of the arguments tending to the conclusion Foster's death was a suicide :

Foster was severely depressed after forwarding instructions from Hillary Rodham Clinton which resulted in the death and incineration of 17 children and 68 adults in the Waco massacre.[14]

The recent reporting on Foster's state of mind, his depression caused by his involvement in the Waco massacre and Hillary publicly ridiculing him, is a more reasoned and plausible explanation than the talking points doled out by the Clinton War Room and surrogates at the time. The mainstream narrative for two decades was that Foster killed himself because he was depressed over filing Hillary's tax returns (as per the Washington Post, for example).[16]

Jerry Parks

The family of Clinton private investigator Jerry Parks has given testimony contradicting the findings of the investigators.[17] Parks did some work for Foster, which included running large sums of cash from the Mena airport to Foster. He was paid $1000 a trip. When Foster's death was announced on a local TV bulletin in Little Rock, Parks sitting at home announced to his family, "I'm a dead man." He muttered that Bill Clinton's people were "cleaning house," and that he was "next on the list." Within days their family home was burglarized, and a dossier Parks was compiling at the request of Hillary Clinton and Foster to contain "bimbo eruptions" was stolen.[18]

On September 23, 1993, on the way home from a restaurant, a white Chevrolet Caprice pulled up beside him on the Chenal Parkway. An assassin let off a volley of semi-automatic fire. Parks skidded to a halt in the intersection of Highway 10. The killer jumped out and finished him off with a 9 mm handgun—two more shots into the chest at point blank range. Several witnesses watched as the gunman joined his accomplice in the waiting car and sped away.[19][20][21]

Miguel Rodriguez

In the files of the National Archives and Records Administration, Kenneth Starr’s lead prosecutor Miguel Rodriguez submitted a 2-page resignation letter and a 31-page memo about the injuries Foster sustained.[22] Rodriguez notes in the letter details of injuries around Foster’s neck which were not reported in the official final report.

At the time, the FBI claimed that Foster’s neck injury photos were underexposed, and therefore useless to them.

These records indicate Foster didn’t really die from one .38 caliber gunshot, but from two gunshots. The other shot was on the right side of his neck, made by a “Small caliber” bullet hole.

Rodriguez claims that after he produced additional damning evidence of a possible Foster murder coverup, he became a target and was investigated internally. Mark Tuohey, past President of the D.C. Bar who served as deputy counsel to Starr, thwarted Rodriguez's efforts. Rodriguez was threatened by FBI investigators and others to "back off" and "back down." Rodriguez stated the result of the investigation was pre-determined by Fiske, and Starr held to the same determination.[23]

After resigning Rodriguez took the case to the media. While reporters were interested, editors at the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, Associated Press, Reuters and others spiked the story.[24]

The motivation for a coverup among FBI investigators evidently is careerism, a desire to get along with one's professional colleagues and suck up to the boss who is capable of handing out rewards and promotions. Having ruled prematurely, based on the US Park Police's inept investigation, that "no criminal activity" occurred, to avoid embarrassment the FBI was determined to stick by its story throughout the two subsequent Independent Counsel investigations.

Patrick Knowlton

At 4:30 PM on the afternoon Foster died a commuter stuck in traffic needed to relieve himself. He exited the freeway and drove into Fort Marcy Park. When he entered the parking lot he saw a car with Arkansas license plates - not Vince Foster's. A Middle Eastern or Hispanic man in a car beside it glared at him menacingly, exited the car and stood alongside it when Knowlton got out of his car to find a tree to do his business. Knowlton hurried up, returned to his vehicle, and left.

Later that evening, Knowlton saw on the news that Foster's body had been found just after 6 PM. Knowlton called the police to report what he saw, was thanked and told they'd be in touch. No one ever followed up on Knowlton's report.

9 months later when questions arose over the botched Park Police investigation, and a special prosecutor had been appointed to look into the Clinton's real estate investments, Foster's death was reopened and combined into the Whitewater investigation. Knowlton again came forward, this time to speak with the FBI. The FBI tried to convince Knowlton he didn't see what he saw. They tried pleading and plodding Knowlton to second-guess himself and load up his statement with uncertainty.

Meantime the first Special Prosecutor, Fiske, was booted off the case for a conflict of interest. Fiske defended clients in the BCCI scandal in 1991, and now was investigating the same people, Foster, Hillary Clinton, Webster Hubbell and others who worked for BCCI. Ken Starr took over and in October of the following year, two years and three months after Foster's death, summoned Knowlton to testify before the Whitewater Grand Jury. But the FBI was fearful Knowlton intended to stand by what he saw.

Knowlton learned through a journalist that the FBI agent who interviewed him a year and a half earlier had altered his statement to imply that Knowlton may have seen Vince Foster's vehicle with Arkansas plates in the parking lot at 4:30 PM. The statements of other witnesses and rescue workers also formed a conclusion that Foster's dead body was in the park before Foster's vehicle arrived. But the other witnesses hadn't been interviewed by journalists, and they too didn't know investigators shaded their written reports with uncertainty which would be of no use to a grand jury.

On his way to the Court House to give testimony, Knowlton encountered no less than 23 men, strangers, over several blocks, staring him down, bumping into him, walking on his heals, walking beside him, using all manner of intimidation tactics to rattle him and question his sanity. And if he spoke about it to anyone, he'd sound like a paranoid lunatic.

Knowlton was ridiculed in the Grand Jury, with Starr's prosecuter implying to the jury Knowlton was in the park looking for a gay rendezvous. His statement was ignored in the final report. Knowlton sued for inclusion over Starr's objections, stating the FBI had misrepresented and falsified his statements. The panel of three federal judges who appointed Starr allowed Knowlton to attach an appendix to the final Starr Report with his testimony of what he saw at Fort Marcy Park. Knowlton also documented ethical violations, witness intimidation, harassment, threats, and obstruction of justice by FBI officials.

Timeline

July 8, Thursday - Swiss Air refunds the purchase price of Foster's ticket. Foster had canceled the trip to Geneva "when he inquired about his numbered bank account at Banca Della Svizzera Italiana in Chiasso, Switz.--and found the account empty. Foster was shocked to learn from the bank that someone using his secret authorization code had withdrawn all $2.73 million he had stashed there and had moved it to, of all places, the US Treasury."[25]

July 11, Sunday - Vince Foster tells his wife Lisa he had written the opening argument for his defense against a feared congressional probe into his affairs. According to the Fiske report, Lisa believed this was the torn note found in Foster's briefcase by Stephen Neuwirth on July 26, six day's after Foster's death.

July 12, Monday - Webster Hubbell receives Inslaw's rebuttal to the Bua Report. The rebuttal is dated July 11, 1993.[26]

July 16, Friday - Sheila F. Anthony allegedly effects an approximate $286,000 wire transfer from Mellon Bank to Lisa Foster. Sheila Anthony contacts a psychiatrist and tells him—according to the psychiatrist—that Vince Foster is working on "top secret" issues at the White House, and that "his depression was directly related to highly sensitive and confidential matters." But Vince Foster does not visit the psychiatrist. Instead the name of this psychiatrist, along with the names of two others, are found in his wallet after his death.

Clinton has a two hour meeting with Judge Louis Freeh.

In the evening Vince and Lisa Foster drive to the Tidewater Inn, on the eastern shore of Maryland.

July 17–18, Saturday & Sunday - Vince and Lisa Foster spend the weekend on Maryland's eastern shore. By "coincidence" Webster Hubbell also spends the weekend in the area, and he and Vince Foster meet at the estate of Michael Cardozo, head of Clinton's legal defense team and son-in-law of prominent Democratic fund-raiser Nathan Landau.

According to the Fiske report, "Lisa Foster stated that the weekend did not go particularly well for Foster. When Foster returned on Sunday evening, July 18, he spoke to Lyons by telephone." James M. Lyons was a Little Rock attorney who was Counsel to the Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition Planning Foundation. He says Foster discussed Travelgate, and they talked about his representing Foster before Congress.

July 19, Monday - Marsha Scott, Deputy Assistant to the President, spends 1–2 hours in a closed door session with Vince Foster. This is especially noted by Linda Trapp, executive assistant to Bernard Nussbaum, because Foster rarely has meetings this long with any one person.

Foster calls Larry Watkins, his physician in Arkansas and says he is depressed. Watkins calls a D.C. pharmacy and has 30 tablets of DESYREL (Trazodon) delivered to Foster's residence before 6 p.m.

Monday night Foster goes home earlier than usual. Bill Clinton calls to invite Vince to a movie back at the White House. Vince declines, and has dinner with Lisa.

July 20, Tuesday - At 9:27 a.m. in the Rose Garden, Clinton nominates Judge Louis Freeh to be head of FBI. Clinton commends the FBI on the "remarkably swift arrest in the World Trade Center bombing" and laments that "drugs continue to ravage our young people and our streets".

In Little Rock, the FBI obtains a warrant to search the Little Rock offices of David Hale, the head of Capital Management Services. Hale was a Clinton-appointed municipal judge who charged that James McDougal and Gov. Clinton forced him to give fraudulent SBA loans to Clinton's friends. (This included $300,000 to a company connected to Madison Guaranty and run by McDougal's wife, $100,000 of which later ended up in a Whitewater Development Co. account.)

James Lyons calls Foster from Little Rock late morning, but says he was unable to speak to him. Lyons was scheduled to meet with Foster the following day in Washington D.C.

C. Bradley Buck, a partner at the Rose Law Firm, calls Foster. Buck leaves a message when he is unable to speak to Foster. Foster calls back at 12:17 p.m. (D.C. time) and leaves a message for Buck. Buck then calls Foster back at 1:00 p.m., but Foster has gone out. Buck later tells the FBI his calls related to the blind trust he was working on with Foster for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

At 12:00 Foster asks Linda Tripp, executive assistant to Bernard Nussbaum, to get him lunch from the cafetaria. He eats lunch in his office. At about 1:00 p.m. he emerges with his jacket on and leaves, telling Tripp, "There are lot's of M&Ms left in there. I'll be back."

Later at 6 p.m. Foster is reported dead, his body found laying on a steep slope near one of the cannons at Ft. Marcy Park across the Potomac in Virginia. His 4-door Honda Accord bearing Arkansas license plates is found in the Park parking lot. The car is registered to Vincent Foster, Jr. of Little Rock, Arkansas.

A Park Service employee says that a man in a white contractor van had told him that he had seen a body by the last [second] cannon at Fort Marcy Park. This report was in the form of a 911 telephone call to the Fairfax County Public Safety Communications Center. The call was received by dispatcher Marion White at call-taker position 11, at 5:59.59 p.m.

The Secret Service is notified when a White House identification badge is found in the car.

White House staffers Bernard Nussbaum, Patsy Thomasson, and Maggie Williams rifle Foster's office for "national security matters". The FBI and the Park Police are kept waiting outside in the hallway. Secret Service officer Henry O'Neill says he saw Maggie Williams, Hillary's chief of staff, leave "carrying what I would describe, in her arms and hands, as folders". Some documents are taken to Hillary's closet upstairs at the White House.

The White House releases a statement saying, "The positive identification of Mr. Foster's body was provided to the White House at approximately 9:55 p.m., and the death was reported by Park Service Investigators as an apparent suicide."

Robert Getzman calls Debra von Trapp and excitedly says, "We did him!" and "we did him somewhere else, but we dumped him in a 'queer' park to send Clinton and his 'queer' wife a message!"

July 22, Thursday - At the afternoon press briefing, Dee Dee Myers says that the Park Service Police had been at the White House that morning; ". . . what they are looking for is anything that would confirm it was a suicide, such as a note".

Deborah Gorham, Vince Foster's secretary, is asked by Bernard Nussbaum to help search Foster's file. She observes that the index detailing the Clinton's personal files is missing.

Recent developments

In August 2016 Vince Foster was back in the news. A false story was planted in the LondonDaily Mail alleging Foster killed himself because he had been humiliated by Hillary Clinton in a staff meeting one week before killing himself. This story sounds more plausible then the official explanation the Washington Post has cited for more than two decades - Beth Foster was depressed because he had done Hillary's tax returns,[27] there are problems with it. Mainly, that according to the First Lady's schedule now at the Clinton Library in Arkansas, Hillary Clinton was in Japan and the Far East more than two weeks before Foster's body was discovered. She returned to the United States on July 18, spent two days in Arkansas, and wasn't scheduled to return to Washington till after Foster's body was found. Numerous other sources corroborate her schedule.

FBI files relating to Hillary's role in the Vince Foster's death investigation are now missing from the National Archives.[28]

Investigating the investigators?

A so-called 'Independent Counsel' isn't really independent if he/she has to rely on field investigators from the FBI and US Justice Department. All three flawed investigations were conducted by the same Clinton Justice Department field investigators.

U.S. Park Service Police. This agency lacked the legal jurisdiction to investigate the death of a high level White House employee.

Robert Fiske. Because of the sloppy investigation by the Park Service Police, Special Counsel Robert Fiske was asked to investigate. Robert Fiske previously represented defendants in the BCCI scandal which was laundering money for the Iran-Contra arms dealers and Mena Arkansas dope smugglers.[29][30] Fiske's conflict of interest ultimately compromised his investigation, so Ken Starr was asked to take over.

Kenneth Starr. While Clinton surrogates have delighted in excortiating and demonizing Ken Starr personally, Starr's findings in Foster's death are held up as the gold standard of truth. Starr went on to defend Jeffrey "Joe" Epstein, a registered sex offender and pedophile, from a second conviction for having sex with minors.[31] Epstein, who is a billionaire, has travelled widely with former President Bill Clinton since Bill Clinton left office[32] and is a big donor to the Clinton Foundation. Starr has nothing but praise for Clinton these days[33] and was recently ousted as President of Baylor University for ineptness and lax handling of a sex scandal involving the football team.[34]

Nonetheless, witnesses cited in the Starr Report came forward after the report was issued claiming their statements in the report have been altered by Starr's investigators. Starr, who had delegated the investigation to the FBI and holdovers from the Friske investigation, refused to affix his signature to the final report.

↑Sarah McClendon who worked in the White House since 1941 under 11 presidents and knew everybody and everything there reported a throw rug which had been in the White House for decades was unaccounted for immediately after Foster's suicide.

↑See the Washington Post, "The 1993 suicide of White House counsel Vincent Foster, hard on the heels of the travel-office imbroglio and his filing of delinquent Whitewater Corp. tax returns." Untangling Whitewater, By Dan Froomkin
Washingtonpost.com Staff.